Tangible Rewards for More Than Just Productivity: Examining Canadian Public Accounting Firms' Rewards Programs*

IF 1.6 Q3 BUSINESS, FINANCE
Krista Fiolleau, Carolyn MacTavish, Giselle Obendorf
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Companies spend significant amounts of money on tangible rewards programs, even during the economic turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic. The prevalence, growth, and significance of these expenditures highlight the importance of understanding the purpose and use of these programs by organizations. Research on public accounting (PA) firms' compensation plans has focused on the balance between professional and commercial incentives in partner profit-sharing schemes but has failed to examine the incentives for nonpartner audit professionals. However, it is exactly these professionals who do a substantial amount of work on audit engagements. This paper has three main purposes. First, we investigate the nature and composition of PA firms' tangible rewards programs and provide a detailed description. Second, we examine the use of firms' tangible rewards programs to provide evidence of what actions are being rewarded. We use Almer et al.'s (2005, Behavioral Research in Accounting 17: 1–22) framework, which presents dimensions of the auditors' professional contribution, and explores whether firms recognize these dimensions using tangible rewards. Third, we develop future research questions to help explore the use of tangible rewards in firms without structured output. We collect archival data on the use of tangible rewards from each of the Big 4 PA firms and three of the next four largest international accounting firms in Canada. We find that firms use their tangible rewards programs for “building a culture of recognition,” for performance incentives, and for employee and firm development, thus rewarding a broad set of measures beyond the incentive measures for hours worked.

不仅仅是生产力的有形奖励:考察加拿大公共会计师事务所的奖励计划†
即使在新冠肺炎疫情的经济动荡期间,公司也会在有形奖励计划上投入大量资金。这些支出的普遍性、增长性和重要性突出了了解组织对这些计划的目的和使用的重要性。对公共会计公司薪酬计划的研究集中在合伙人利润分享计划中职业激励和商业激励之间的平衡上,但未能研究对非合伙人审计专业人员的激励。然而,正是这些专业人员在审计业务方面做了大量的工作。本文主要有三个目的。首先,我们调查了PA公司有形奖励计划的性质和组成,并提供了详细的描述。其次,我们研究了企业有形奖励计划的使用情况,以提供奖励行为的证据。我们使用Almer等人(2005,会计行为研究17:1-22)的框架,该框架展示了审计师专业贡献的维度,并探讨了公司是否使用有形奖励来识别这些维度。第三,我们提出了未来的研究问题,以帮助探索在没有结构性产出的公司中使用有形奖励。我们从四大PA公司和加拿大四大国际会计师事务所中的三家收集了关于有形奖励使用的档案数据。我们发现,公司利用其有形的奖励计划来“建立认可文化”、绩效激励以及员工和公司发展,从而奖励工作时间激励措施之外的一系列措施。
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来源期刊
Accounting Perspectives
Accounting Perspectives BUSINESS, FINANCE-
CiteScore
2.60
自引率
0.00%
发文量
30
期刊介绍: Accounting Perspectives provides a forum for peer-reviewed applied research, analysis, synthesis and commentary on issues of interest to academics, practitioners, financial analysts, financial executives, regulators, accounting policy makers and accounting students. Articles are sought from academics and practitioners that address relevant issues in any and all areas of accounting and related fields, including financial accounting and reporting, auditing and other assurance services, management accounting and performance measurement, information systems and related technologies, tax policy and practice, professional ethics, accounting education, and related topics. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing.
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